


Foundations

by xorchidx



Series: Through the Seasons [1]
Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Alternate Canon, Canon Universe, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Secret Past, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29438103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xorchidx/pseuds/xorchidx
Summary: Casey and Severide are made for each other. Some slight tweaks to canon should ensure that, right?!
Relationships: Matthew Casey/Kelly Severide
Series: Through the Seasons [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2162367
Comments: 7
Kudos: 39





	1. 1x01 Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> I recently started rewatching Chicago Fire (lockdown, ya'll) and while rewatching the first season, I caught myself once again thinking what a missed opportunity it was not to have Casey and Severide be the main couple. Now, I love Stella and I don't mind Stella/Severide but I’ve not liked anyone Casey has been serious about, Gabby and him never really fit and Brett, my sweet summer child, is just way too sisterly for him. 
> 
> I’ll not be following the show episode by episode to start with. I’ll just flesh out certain scenes or plot points with a few choice changes so we can have a beautiful slow burn romance between these two but I’ll still keep the episode number in the chapter titles so you can follow along if you want. 
> 
> By the time I post this, I’ve pretty much finished the Season 1 rewrite (it's a rough draft) and am working on 2. I already sort of know what I’ll be doing for season 2 and 3 from what I remember the episodes to be like (I’m rewatching all of it and taking notes and reimagining my plot points and taking from the episodes where needed). To start with, the chapters will be shorter, but the later ones seem to be averaging 3-5k. I'm planning to update about every 2 weeks.

Severide was hurting. He’d tried seemingly everything to not have to think of his hurts but it was no use. He hurt from Andy’s death, his neck hurt constantly (if he wasn’t using narcotics to numb the pain), it hurt asking Shay to get the illegal narcotics for him and yet he couldn't stop. And it hurt not talking to Casey.

He wasn't sure what he was doing with his life. Nothing made sense anymore. The only time he felt like he could breathe was when he was saving someone. And his hurt body just couldn’t sustain non-stop calls. 

He was deep in thought at the Squad table, rethinking every choice he’d ever made, when Capp came out from the common room of the firehouse, bewildered, and let them know, “Hey, Casey is in there cooking.” 

Severide thought he’d heard wrong and started at Capp uncomprehendingly. A Lieutenant just didn’t cook in a firehouse. It was part of grunt work that you didn’t have to do anymore once you got your officer status. It was one of the perks. Like the officers’ quarters. 

Seemed like he wasn’t the only one not quite grasping the situation, though, because Hadley asked in disbelief, “Casey?” 

“Yeah.”

Well, this he had to see.

He walked in and indeed, Casey was getting the food laid out on the bar and of course it looked absolutely amazing. He remembered Casey cooking on the odd occasion, back when they were in the Academy, usually when he had things on his mind. He remembered Casey once saying that keeping his hands busy made his mind calmer. Andy would always make fun of it and always just joke about how he needed to keep Casey’s mind busy then if this was the result. 

Andy. Fuck this shit. Severide looked at Casey and it just so happened that Casey looked up at that exact moment. Their eyes met but Severide couldn’t take it for longer than a moment. He couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t look at Casey and not remember Andy. 

So Severide just took some fruit and walked off, not caring about the looks he was getting from the other firefighters in the house. It seemed like he wasn’t getting away so easily, though, as Casey had followed him, catching up with him on the app floor. 

“What the hell’s going on? You okay?” Fuck no, he was not okay.

“You think I need your help?” Severide could feel the pain radiating from his neck and shoulder so he could barely grasp the fruit he was holding. Fuck. What had Casey noticed? He was way too observant.

“I’m trying here, Severide.” 

“Keep on,” Severide said snidely. He’d always known best how to get a rise out of Casey, it seemed, as he looked at Casey’s furious face but once again, the other Lieutenant caught himself. That damn self-discipline. 

“I cleaned out Darden’s locker.” Pain. He just felt pain at those words. And then, finally, it came, “You should have vented the back.” 

Severide was so ready for this, to finally talk about it, “We’re called the Rescue Squad, Casey. We don’t vent. You shouldn’t have put Andy through the window.”

For a moment it looked like Casey wanted to say more but Severide just couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t talk about Andy anymore. Couldn’t continue remembering the weird friendship/rivalry he had had going with Casey, especially as he remembered the Academy, one night in particular. 

“I don’t have to explain myself to you. I sleep like a baby.” Which was ridiculously far from the truth, “You?” That finally did it and Casey left, leaving him to his misery, while he watched Casey walk away from him. 

And later, when Casey and Hermann fell through to that basement on the apartment fire call, he was the first one there, desperately working to get Casey and Hermann out. He didn’t think about the inordinate amount of relief he felt when he saw Casey come to. 

As usual, they were working in perfect tandem, often knowing what the other was going to be doing in a fire before being briefed out loud. Which meant that they had a desk rigged and knew, without talking, the sequence of steps they needed to take to get out, all in perfect timing. 

Severide tried not to think of the relief on Casey’s face when he had a hold of the Squad Lieutenant and was pulling him from the basement. 

He didn’t realize that the exact same relief showed on his face when Casey caught him.


	2. 1x06 Rear View Mirror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sprinkled in some choice bits from previous episodes that didn't get their own chapter but still shaped Severide's thoughts and actions in this one. The construction site incident was 1x02 Mon Amour.

He was spiralling and he knew it. Finding out about his broken neck, oh sorry, the fracture of his C5 vertebra, was a shock. But at the same time, it also brought to life his biggest fear. The fear that as soon as he hit the ground in that house that cost Andy his life, he knew something was wrong. He had injured himself on the job before and he knew what an injury that healed nicely felt like. This hadn’t been it. He had thought it might be better not knowing and seemed like he had been correct. 

He was still thinking of Peter, the victim from the construction site call, and his wife, Georgie. The poor woman. Letting her watch the last words of her husband that he’d recorded on his phone did something to him. He’d felt so inadequate, sitting there, watching a family’s world destroyed. They’d never had children so he’d hoped Georgie had at least some good friends and other relatives around that would help her through this. He couldn’t even imagine what she must be feeling and what she would be going through. 

Severide knew that he should sit down and think about the current state of his life and his body. He should think about next steps, what this could all mean for him - he was desperately not thinking about being on sick leave for a year or, and this was so much worse, the possibility of not being a firefighter anymore. 

But instead he was desperately trying to fight the symptoms, not the cause. So he made the decision to get in touch with Anna, the pharma rep that he’d hooked up with in the not too distant past, after Leslie had cut him off from the drugs. And even worse, other people like Vargas were starting to notice something was wrong. 

While he was having sex with her, Severide tried not to think. Tried not to think that he was basically whoring himself out for drugs, even if Anna didn’t know that yet. Somewhere inside his head, he knew it wasn’t a healthy choice in any respect but then again he couldn’t really think anymore without the drugs. It seemed like he needed them just to get through the day. If he’d continued thinking in that vein, he might have realized that it was the train of thought of a drug addict of where to get their next fix. 

Finding out that Casey wasn’t in a great situation with that Detective Voight and spiraling as well should have made him feel better about his life choices considering how angry he still felt. How betrayal and hopelessness washed over him every time he thought of Andy. But turned out, knowing Casey was going off the rails as well didn’t make him feel a lick better. 

Severide had just gotten down from the aerial basket where he’d saved that urban graffiti artist, Zito, from his wonky ladder when an unmarked cop car pulled up. As soon as Boden saw who was stepping out of the car, he nodded in Severide’s direction and asked him to step in with a sharp, “Kelly”. This was personal. 

While Severide hadn’t had any personal run-ins with the shifty Detective, he still recognized Voight and he knew what he needed to do without any other instruction so caught Casey with no compunctions, keeping him in easy grabbing range. Of course, Voight just couldn’t leave well enough alone and Severide knew, before Casey had even so much as moved, to pull him back with a hand on the other’s shoulder and push him into taking a few steps away from the situation, as Voight started in on Casey, “Oh, hey, Casey. You got your deposition tomorrow.” 

Severide still had a hand on Casey, so could feel the moment the other lieutenant’s muscles tightened in preparation of movement. It felt strange touching Casey and trying to anticipate what the other was going to be doing but Severide didn’t acknowledge it. 

And then, of course Voight went for Hallie. Fuck. “Let me ask you, is that cute little fiancée of yours gonna be there too? 'Cause I gotta tell you, the other night, when we were talking, she seemed kinda, I don't know, shut down. But by the end, she really started to open up.”

Thankfully, he had a good handhold on Casey. That part wasn’t a chore. And the thought, ‘at least this time Casey wasn’t mad at him’ ran through his brain for just a moment, knowing the last time he was this close to Casey and not in an active fire, they were about to get into a fight.

“Hey, come on,” and Severide pulled Casey away from the scene. 

Back at 51, the situation still fresh in his mind, he saw Casey emerging from the Chief’s office, thunder on his face. That must have not been a fun experience, as he could definitely commiserate with Casey on Boden’s usual ‘get your shit together’. 

Severide didn’t know why he offered, he just knew he did it without much thought as the other lieutenant was storming past, “Hey. Hey, look… Look, man, you wanna hit somebody, my buddy has a boxing gym over in Bucktown. You get a trainer, you glove up, you hit mitts, 5 bucks a round. We could head over there after shift.”

Casey looked contemplative. So not all was lost. 

“Yeah, I’ll think about it. Thanks.” It was a sincere thanks. And it actually made Severide feel good for once. 

He was surprised, although he shouldn’t have been when he didn’t see Casey come off Truck after the next call that 81 and 61 were on. He just got a bland expression from Herrmann when he inquired after Casey, who couldn’t or wouldn’t say what was going on so his next stop was the Chief. He couldn’t control his own life so maybe it was time he tried controlling someone else’s. Though trying to talk the Chief into letting Casey come back was not really a thing, apparently. Severide acknowledged to himself, having seen Casey interacting with Voight, that the other lieutenant probably needed to cool off for a bit. 

However, hearing the Chief say, “I’m a Chief first, a friend second,” made him realise once again that he should definitely keep his mouth shut when it came to his own injury. But it still didn’t sit completely right with him letting Casey find his own way.

He saw Casey coming back later that shift, and Hadley was quick to say, “Uh oh.” But he knew, just from watching Casey walk towards 51, “No, all good,” turning back around in his armchair. Hadley questioned him though, “How do you know?” and Severide felt a confused stab of something foreign hit him in the gut, that he tried to disregard quickly, but he still answered, “That’s an ‘I’m with the program’ kind of walk.” 

And then later, during the apartment building fire, when he heard Boden, who had gone inside himself to help them out, radio everyone, “Casey plus two on eight. East corner unit. Move that ladder now!” 

Severide took a deep breath, thinking, however, Casey’s “Mayday, Mayday, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold it back,” sharpened his focus exponentially and his situational awareness made him realize, “8 is a reach. Get that ladder as close as you can. Hug the building if you have to, Capp, I’ll climb.” Nothing was going to stop him from doing this on his own. 

“We’re coming for you, Casey,” Severide radioed.

“Better make it fast, it’s getting hot in here,” came the dry response. 

As soon as he was able to look through the window into the smoke-filled building... at how desperately Casey was trying to keep that door shut from the violent flames, he knew this wasn’t good. 

He handed off the woman, who came through the window first to Capp, quickly focusing on the next part and realizing Casey wasn’t going to be able to hang in there for much longer. 

“Come on!” 

“Not until he’s out.” Fucking Casey. He wasn’t expecting anything else, though, always being the hero. They were both the same. 

“Let’s go.” He tried to make the second victim, the woman’s grown son hustle so Casey could get out - that door would be boiling hot by now. 

“Now your turn!” He tried to get Casey to hurry out of there. 

“No way, not until you’re out of range.”

“Not moving, let go now!”

He knew as soon as Casey let go, that flame was going to search for oxygen and barrel towards the window so he prepared to go low to give Casey as much room as he could. 

With a mighty roar he could hear the fire surge. He felt the ladder jerk and as soon as the fireball was through, he opened his eyes and saw Casey hanging onto the side of the ladder for dear life, with 8 floors beneath his dangling feet.

“Can’t-”

He didn’t want to hear that from Casey. 

“Grab my …. grab my arm!” Severide was gripping Casey for dear life. 

With much effort, Casey was able to swing a leg onto the side of the ladder. Severide thanked every god out there that Casey hadn’t come up on his bad side and Severide was able to pull with all the strength he had and was finally able to get Casey and his 60lbs of gear into the aerial ladder. Finally Casey was safe and sound next to him. Severide felt Casey breathe out harshly in relief, not realizing that he mirrored the action perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should be up within 2 weeks again and will deal with the happenings in 1x10 Merry Christmas, Etc (so far my favorite and longest chapter in this fic).


	3. 1x10 Merry Christmas, Etc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I nearly missed my own deadline this week but I made it, yay (depending on the time zone you live in)! I may need to go in and do an edit as I just didn't have time to properly get that done though. Sorry! (And hope it's not too full of mistakes)

1x10 Merry Christmas, Etc. 

Matt was still reeling from the break-up with Hallie, visiting his father’s grave and seeing Christie and her family there, so arriving at work and seeing all the Christmas decorations up, he just sighed. 

He really wasn’t in the mood for Christmas. Never really was, as it was always just too close to his father’s death anniversary. He never quite knew how to feel when he was visiting his father’s grave in the first instance, so seeing Christie and her daughter, his niece, that he hadn’t seen in years, opened up too many things inside him that he knew were better left locked away. It was so much easier that way, not opening those doors. 

So he was quite glad for the early morning call, right after shift started, even if it was just a small kitchen fire. 

Arriving in the kitchen and seeing the small fire on the kitchen counter, Casey nearly sighed out loud, especially when a simple gust or two of the fire extinguisher put out the flames. Of course he was conscientious though and told his guys, “All right, let's do a quick walk-through, open some windows, get this place vented.”

He barely even realized the guys talking about how rich these people must be, until Otis’ shout of “Oh, you guys!” That got Casey’s attention, until of course, Otis followed up, when he had everyone’s attention, with - “This priceless piece of artwork has been destroyed. Oh, wait. Never mind. It's supposed to look like that.” 

He just continued venting the place.

After a last walk through, Casey inspected the kitchen once more and then left with his guys. Outside, he saw the woman being treated by 61 so he walked over to her and simply said, “Probably need a new countertop, but everything else is okay.”

When they got a call to a pin-in accident right from the scene of the kitchen fire, he was actually quite glad he could keep his mind at least somewhat busy with thoughts of the job, rather than think of his personal life, which was in tatters. 

On the drive back to the station, his thoughts kept circling back to Hallie and the barely finished Voight thing to seeing his sister Christie at his father’s cemetery, piling on the thoughts of inadequacies in his life.

So coming back to the station and seeing Ted Griffin of all people standing on the apron did not help matters. At all. Such an incredible rush of emotions tried to surface at seeing the guy, he actually got light-headed from the adrenaline that surged through his body. 

Griffin walked towards him with a righteous swagger that didn’t help Casey’s mood. 

“Matthew Casey. How about that?”

The ass actually tried to shake his hand, what was this, the Twilight Zone? He was never going to touch the guy, unless it was to punch him, again, so he just looked at Griffin’s outstretched hand with disgust. Yes, he wasn’t going to take the high road here. 

“What are you doing here, Griffin?” He was so over this day. Which was just compounded at what came out of the guy’s mouth next. 

“I'm with Internal Affairs Division now.”

Herrmann, who was taking his turnout coat off to hook on the side of the Truck, asked the question that burned on his mind, “What's the I.A.D. doing here?” and he heard Otis continue, “C.P.D. too.” as two guys with police badges walked up behind Griffin. 

The Chief walked up as well - what the hell was going on? 

“What the hell's going on?” he asked. 

And thankfully the Chief answered, Casey probably wouldn’t be able to stand that smug asshole Griffin answer. 

“A woman on Green Street said somebody walked off with her diamond necklace.”

Didn’t help him with the shock though. 

Thankfully Mouch gave voice to his astonishment, “What?” 

He had to agree, this was ridiculous and asked, “This is a joke, right?”

It was one of the police officers that answered though, “No joke, Lieutenant.”

Fuck this shit. 

“My men aren't thieves.” He knew he could trust every single one of his guys. He didn’t even have to think about that. 

Again it was the police officer behind Griffin, who answered, “All the same, we're talking about a  
$50,000 piece of jewelry.” 

“That's a class 2 felony,” Griffin followed up. Oh, he could see how much Griffin was enjoying this. 

“Casey, the police need to take statements from you and the men,” The Chief said, jumping in, knowing his lieutenant and the history he had with Griffin, it was in his personnel file. 

“And I'm gonna need you to fill out a form too. Basic stuff... where you worked in the fire, who you worked with, if you saw the missing item or anything else at all suspicious,” Griffin walked around every guy, giving them report sheets to complete. 

Casey took his suspenders of the bunker gear off nearly violently, trying to step out of his bunker pants with some grace, while boiling. It actually wasn’t easy. 

When Griffin came to him at last and gave him a report sheet, he just looked at his Chief, and bit out, “Can I have a minute?”

He didn’t even make it to the Chief’s office, before exploding into the briefing room and laid it out for the Chief.

“On my best day, I'd have to fight the urge to choke that guy out. Today’s not my best day.”

The Chief laid it out clearly, “The possible theft of a $50,000 necklace supersedes any concerns  
about your personal feelings toward Ted Griffin.”

This was absolutely crazy. Had the world gone completely off the deep end?!

“Chief, you know as well as I do, none of my men took that necklace.”

“I hope not, 'cause I don't want to see any of them lose their job and face criminal charges. And I don't want to see their Lieutenant get a black mark on his record, so let's just play this one by the book.”

Of course he’d agree to play this by the book, and he nodded at the Chief.

“Good.”

Of course he’d agreed, but his thoughts were circling. 

It didn’t help that on his walk back he stopped in the hallway next to the common room, and overheard Herrmann give the rundown to their candidate on his history with Griffin. “There was an incident.” He nearly smirked at Herrmann’s, for once, diplomatic description of what happened. 

“What kind of incident?” He heard Mills ask. 

But it was Mouch who answered this time, “The kind that ends with Griffin getting his face punched in.”

“Wait, why did the Lieutenant hit him?” 

“He was talking trash about Casey’s family...Uhm, but see, we don’t talk about that.”

Casey just sighed (he was doing a lot of that today), sometimes it sucked having barely any secrets around this place. Then again, there was one… Fuck having Griffin here, it brought up too many memories from the Academy and he just couldn’t deal at the moment so he started to walk off without looking at the common room and its inhabitants, when Otis must have glimpsed him and shouted, “Lieutenant!”

Otis had apparently done some digging on the family and may have found some possible debt and insurance scams but Casey’s head just wasn’t in it. Casey didn’t think anything good could actually be happening today, he was just too much under a cloud, so he wasn’t really hearing what Otis was saying. 

His shitty mood just continued when he heard about Herrmann buying some shitty limousine for his next doomed business venture. Walking out and watching Severide over the motor, explaining the status of the junk limousine to Herrmann and what needed to be replaced, had his memory circling back again to the Academy and to Severide.

Thankfully, the two of them had seemingly reached a ceasefire and they hadn’t had anymore confrontations. He was just so tired of being on the outs with Severide. He missed his friend. He missed Andy and he missed Severide. That unfortunate day would haunt him forever as it made him lose his two best friends. 

He quickly got his thoughts back under control and looked back over to Severide tinkering with the car. Casey knew something was up with him, he just didn’t have the bandwidth to really look into that situation. Having Vargas injured and then standing on that roof messed with them all. No one wanted to stop being a fireman due to an injury but it seemed to have hit something in Severide. And something Vargas said in the locker room when he heard about the 3/4 pay and asked Sevride pointedly if he would take it in his situation and Severide’s reaction to it just didn’t sit well with him. But he just didn’t want to think of that whole mess.

When Dawson asked him to some fancy-ass sounding Christmas party, he figured he could do with something fun to distract him. He knew he shouldn’t be starting anything with Dawson, his head just wasn’t in the right place but that didn’t seem to stop him from agreeing to go with her as her date anyways. 

He was still feeling better when he confronted Griffin, as the I.A.D. and CPD were going through the guys’ lockers, 

“Griffin, can I have a word with you?”

Everyone else headed towards the locker room while he and Griffin stopped in the bunk room, giving them some space. 

Griffin crossed his arms in a standoffish way and asked, “What? You want to punch me again?”

Always, Casey nearly said. 

“When’s the last time I.A.D. searched an entire House?”

That seemed to get Griffin’s pretend dander up, “A firefighter stole a $50,000 necklace, and it’s my job to find out who.”

What bullshit. Casey knew Griffin didn’t care about finding a thief, if there even was one. Certainly not among his guys. 

Casey had his arm resting on the glass divider of the bunk beds, he knew he needed to relax and not have Griffin get under his skin, that certainly wouldn’t look good even when they didn’t find that damn necklace in this House. 

Griffin continued, “But don’t blame me if you suddenly regret assaulting a fellow classmate.”

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew Griffin had made this personal. Casey wouldn’t be surprised if Griffin saw him and his House being involved in this and making sure he was assigned this case to really make sure something stuck to him and/or one of his guys.

Casey knew all that and he still couldn’t shut up though, 

“Regret it? I’m glad I did it. You weren’t the first idiot to make a crack about my family.” He couldn’t simply stand there anymore. Casey could feel his body coiling tighter as he walked towards Griffin, delivering the end of his diatribe, “You were the last. No one’s brought it up again since I laid your ass out,” Casey finished, standing right in Griffin’s face and for a moment he gloried in the little bit of fear he saw there. He remembered the punch that he’d delivered. Remembered because he had hit the asshole so hard, he thought he’d broken his hand back then. 

“Sucker punched,” Griffin tried to defend himself. 

“You saw it coming.” No one could have expected Casey to keep his cool, after what Griffin had said. 

“The only ones who saw it were your buddies. None of whom had the integrity to say what really happened.” It was painful to think of Andy. Because it had been Andy and Severide there that day. Griffin would know Andy had died. Thankfully firefighters didn’t die so much that it was a casual thing. Everyone within the CFD knew who had recently died. Matt knew he couldn’t move or say anything or he’d lay the guy out again. 

Griffin didn’t seem to get that though or he just didn’t care because the next words out of his mouth were, “By the way...how is your mom?” And he lost it. It was chance, or luck that had Boden see him coming and knowing him well enough to step in and hold him back. 

“Whoa, whoa whoa. Casey blood sure runs hot, don’t it?” Casey had to blink and take a breath to get himself back under control after that. Fuck, that nearly turned into exactly what Griffin was probably hoping for. If he’d gone in, Griffin would have probably written him up until he ran out of paper. 

The call couldn’t have come soon enough. Although he couldn’t have guessed it was going to define his Truck for a while. Being shot at certainly wasn’t fun, when trying to save people and get a fire under control but when he had to pull Herrmann out of the way, who was getting a bit too hot for his liking, he quickly changed tacks and decided to leave Herrmann out of the building and take Severide instead. In a fire, he could always count on Severide. 

Although, once it was over, it seemed like even the best laid plans couldn’t help this time.They’d missed one, which never felt good. 

However, when Otis came to him with a proper background check on the rich family, he had to applaud Otis’ tenacity and quickly got with the program, as Otis rattled off the financial ruin, being leveraged up to their eyeballs and Mr. Vaughan being investigated twice for wire fraud. 

And maybe Casey thought that for once they had a win. Thought that it was going to feel so good showing this to Griffin, and rubbing his face in it, as he apparently couldn’t even do his own job, considering Truck had to do it for him and get a private background check when Griffin should have started with a background check on that family. 

That thought got confirmed, when he went to Griffin, who was getting himself coffee from their common room.

With a smirk, Griffin started before he could get a word out, “Well, Lt. Casey. Four-hour call, huh? That was... pretty convenient.”

He wasn’t even going to comment on doing his fucking job, “It's insurance fraud. The woman with the diamonds? They're broke.”

“What do you do off-shift, drive around in a van solving mysteries?”

He put down the report, knowing that Griffin wasn’t even going to read it and stomped off to his officer’s quarters. He just needed a break. He was all over the place recently and having Griffin here and remembering the Academy brought up too many things. 

But seemed like he couldn’t get a break because he was barely in his room when he heard, “Lt. Casey. You're up.” And Griffin entered his office without so much as a knock.

“What is it you're hoping for, Griffin?”

“Toss the room. Search him.”

“Seriously? Come on,” Casey said as he was getting patted down. But he knew he wasn’t going to get any leeway from Griffin. That guy had always been such a miserable asshole. 

“It's all yours.” Well, he guessed he had to get this sorted himself then and Casey had just the idea, considering this seemed to be a cobbled together fraud attempt. He was going to cobble together a solution. 

He informed the Chief that he was stepping out and was knocking on the Vaughan’s door in no time. It was Mrs. Vaughan who opened the door, confused, so he went right into his spiel. 

“I just wanted to apologize on behalf of Truck 81 for your missing item and to let you know we're going to get to the bottom of it.”

“Well, I should hope so.”

Casey looked at her for a moment, just taking in her audacity to try to pin this on him or one of his men. They’d come to help, put out her fire and she was trying to get one of them into prison. 

So he didn’t feel bad with his subterfuge and pulled out the thermal camera, “This is a thermal imaging camera. It's a really great piece of technology. It helps us see through the thickest smoke.”

“Okay.” So far, she wasn’t impressed. 

“We all carry them, and we leave them recording the whole time we're on a call. I'm actually on my way to drop all our cameras off with the police so they can review the footage, and see exactly what happened the entire time my men and I were inside your home. So don't worry.”

“Okay. Is that it?” She was playing a good game, but Casey had seen her swallow when he mentioned the word ‘record’ and knew he had her. 

“Yeah.”

Sometimes it paid to have the general populace have no idea about fighting fires or the equipment firefighters used. 

When he left, he wasn’t a hundred percent sure if that worked but he was sure enough with this gamble he left feeling good.

Casey was back at the locker room just in time to hear Griffin ask after him, “Chief Boden, have you been able to locate Lt. Casey?”

“I’m right here,” Ah, showing up unannounced, that felt good as well. 

So he was right there when Griffin got the call and then let everyone know once he got off the phone, “The diamond slipped down into a heat register, apparently. Mrs. Vaughan just found ’em.” 

His inner glee was so great, that even when Griffin slipped one in as he was leaving, “Do say hi to your mom for me.” didn’t even get a rise out of him and he just pointed towards the exit with a sharp, “Door’s that way.” 

Herrmann looked at him and smiled. Herrmann was always quick on the uptake.

“Alright… so what’d you do?”

“Nothing, “ Casey stated innocently, “I just told her we recorded the whole thing on our thermal cameras, you know.” His guys were impressed, although it took Mills a moment to realize he’d lied, as of course thermal cameras didn’t record a damn thing. That felt good too, that he could protect his Truck. 

All that left though when he saw Christie at the station. His relationship with his sister was strained and always fraught but Christie had actually brought him a Christmas present, which was a kind gesture. Of course the discussion quickly got into their usual issues.

“Don’t you miss, dad?” Christie asked, but his feelings were so complicated for his father, he didn’t know what to say to her. He couldn’t quite quantify a response in a few seconds. Or minutes. Or ever, for that matter. 

His mind was still somewhere else when he and Dawson went to her Christmas party. When they had that awkward near kiss, he knew instantly that he should have never come with her. His mind just wasn’t in the right place, “I can’t. It’s not a good time.” His thoughts were all over the place and he just couldn’t imagine getting into a new relationship right now, especially with someone from the fire house, with Dawson. 

Casey ended up driving to prison to see his mom on Christmas Day, which in itself was a minefield of huge proportions but on the drive, he let his mind wander for the first time in days and he was reminded of a time at the Academy, when things seemed so much simpler, but also so much worse. 

It hadn’t been so long since his father’s death (he tried not to think of it as murder as he just couldn’t let himself see his mom as a murderess) so ‘death’ was much more palatable to him. There were lots of people whose parents died. Car accidents or cancer being the most common. But not so many whose parents got murdered, and barely any whose parent got murdered by the other parent. 

It had taken him a while to find some friends in the Fire Academy but Andy Darden was a force of nature that no one could withstand and no one could say no to. 

Andy was already engaged to his childhood sweetheart when they met in the Academy but his dour friend, Kelly Severide apparently had just gotten out of an engagement. He always got angry about it when anybody asked so people had stopped asking what happened, although Andy always gave Kelly a long look when it came up. 

He quickly found out that Kelly Severide’s dad was a legend within the CFD but whenever the topic of Benny Severide came up, Kelly got distant and usually just walked off. He could get behind that feeling. Whenever his family came up, that’s what he usually wanted to do as well.

The three of them usually hung out after class at a bar close to the Academy and because Andy usually left early to get home to his fiancee, that left Kelly and him alone. Not that they usually talked about much beyond the Blackhawks or something to do with training. 

“Has he always been like that?” Matt asked, after Andy had left them and reagled them with a prank that Kelly apparently hadn’t heard of (which the other guy admitted was rare).

“He just talked for an hour about the pranks he pulled in high school so, yeah, the answer is, yeah.”

Matt couldn’t even imagine growing up around someone with that sort of energy.

Kelly was about to take a sip from his bottle but stopped, looking at him for a moment and then putting his bottle down again, simply said, “It’s saved me.”

Matt didn’t quite know what he meant so he just raised his eyebrows to see if Kelly wanted to continue and elaborate. Casey knew that sometimes even well-meaning friends could make you feel like shit. 

It took a while but Kelly actually started, “Growing up… I had two best friends that lived on my street. April and Andy. Without them, man... My dad… it’s funny how those white shirts at CFD revere him but to me, he’s always just been the asshole that left my mom high and dry and left her with all the bills and me, while he shacked up with two other families.”

Well, that was certainly surprising. He hadn’t heard anything about that and the CFD, as he had quickly found out, were a bunch of gossips of the first order.

Kelly huffed out a laugh and then took a deep drink of his beer, looking everywhere but at Matt. 

“Why did you want to be a firefighter, Matt?” Kelly asked without looking at him. 

Matt didn’t really have to think about it but he had to think about if he wanted to tell Kelly the full truth or if he wanted to give the other man the abridged version. 

“When I was around 17, my uncle got me into carpentry, so I helped him out a lot in his garage shop. One day there was an electrical fire and the sawdust went up before we even saw that the outlet was arcing. Man, a Truck got there so quick, and put the fire out in no time. It was impressive. And I thought I wanted to do that.”

There was so much more to it than that but he wasn’t really up to trying to find the right words to explain how nearly he’d gone completely off the rails.

“What about you?” Matt asked Kelly.

“Everybody keeps asking me if I’m stepping into Benny’s footsteps. But that’s the farthest thing I want to do. I don’t want to be a firefighter because of Benny, I want to be a firefighter in spite of him. I want to do it all but know I did it without him. I didn’t even let him know I’d applied to the Academy, although I’m sure the white shirts have talked to him already. Anyways, let’s not talk about my stupid family.”

He could see Severide wasn’t too fond of talking about this so his natural need to be helpful, then led him to making a decision. 

“When that fire happened, when I was 17, I was living with my aunt and uncle because my dad had died.”

“Sorry to hear that, Matt.” And it seemed to Matt that Kelly actually was sorry and not just saying it, which made him think, that Kelly’s relationship with his father was way more complicated than he made it seem. 

“Yeah... he got murdered.”

“Shit, Matt, I’m sorry.”

“By my mom.”

“Fuck. Matt.”

“Yeah.”

Now it was him who couldn’t look at Kelly as he was chugging his beer. 

Then Kelly laughed, “My fiancee fucked a friend the weekend before our wedding and I caught them in the act.”

Matt nearly spit out the beer he was drinking and he just couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud. 

“Are you serious?” 

“Yeah,” Kelly smiled crookedly. 

“I thought that only happened on TV.”

“No, believe me. It was very real. Very vivid.”

“Ah, sorry for laughing, man, for a moment I thought you were just trying to lighten the mood.”

“No, I don’t know. I just didn’t know what to say after you spilled that. So I just word-vomited apparently.”

“Yeah, no, understandable.”

“Cheers to shitty pasts then,” Kelly said and clinked the neck of his beer bottle softly against Matt’s. 

They just smiled then, with a new understanding of each other, not just hanger-ons and forced together by Andy, but friends, confidantes in their own right. 

It felt good. 

Ted Griffin, who he had quickly realized was an absolute asshole, went and found out about his past. Ever since he’d overtaken Griffin in an exercise and done it in a way that really seemed to stick with Griffin, the guy had had it out for him. From snide comments to trying to make it seem as if he was cheating on tests, Griffin tried it all. 

Griffin apparently made it his life’s mission to take him down. He was able to let the little things slide (barely) but what he wasn’t able to let slide was the locker room completely plastered with news articles of the murder on the day of his final test. 

Of course, Griffin was nowhere to be seen but Matt knew it was him. 

It didn’t feel good having every single recruit looking at him as if he was the murderer all day long. What did feel good though was setting a new record in the practical test. All that anger and hatred he was feeling for Griffin really helped him. 

“You feeling good about yourself, Casey?”

Of course it was as he was leaving the locker room, now thankfully without articles stuck on the lockers, that Griffin made his move. Casey was still high on adrenaline of his record but his anger had been simmering the whole day as well, “You going to tell your mommy how great you did today? I guess not, I hear she’s still in prison for the next 30 years.”

Matt was able to let that slide and barely reacted, although he saw Andy and Kelly had joined them in the locker room, getting their own stuff. 

“How’s it feel to be the son of a murderer, Casey? Should we all hide the guns around you? Heard your dad was known to whale into your mom. A murderer on one side, a wife beater on the other. I wonder who you’ll take after.”

It was hard but he could take it. He could. His fist coiled tighter. 

“Give it a rest, asshole,” he heard Kelly pipe up while closing his locker door, hard. 

“No, no let’s hear it from Casey, your dad ever whale into you, maybe you helped your mom do the deed,” Griffin smirked and looked away, towards the guys, which was when Casey punched the lights out of the guy.

For just a moment, just a moment, before rational thought set in again and before he could feel his hand, it felt so incredibly good. Then he saw Griffin lying unconscious on the ground, the locker room was pure silence, Andy and Kelly just stared at him. 

The silence was only broken when Kelly chuckled and called, “The asshole had it coming.” 

“This is bad, isn’t it?” Matt asked them, still looking at Griffin on the floor.

Andy stepped over and took the pulse of the man lying unconscious on the floor. 

“Nah, he’s good, just couldn’t take the punch. His pulse is strong and his eyes look good.” As he was saying that, Griffing was starting to come around. It was good and bad that the first words out of his mouth were, “I’ll make sure you’ll never work for the CFD, Casey.” Good because that meant he probably didn’t have any brain damage, bad because this was bad and he could actually get dinged for this. 

“You had it coming. After what you pulled today, especially today, when everyone hears what happened, I don’t think your grievances will hold.” 

Later that evening, when they got shit faced at a bar, Matt’s knuckles carefully wrapped, it was suddenly hilarious what had happened during the day. 

And even though it was their final day at the Academy, Andy once again took an early exit and left Matt and Kelly to their own devices. And both were in a good mood, after having had talks with the higher ups all afternoon and getting out with barely a reprimand after having explained the circumstances.The boatloads of alcohol were helping as well. 

“I still see him going down like a hammer. It was amazing.”

“Glad you were entertained, Kel.” 

“It was so good.” Kelly seemed to be far away, really appreciating the visual of Griffin having his lights punched out. 

When next Matt got up to use the bathroom, he had to hold onto Kelly’s shoulder, as the world tilted.

Matt looked down and suddenly, Kelly’s bright eyes, shimmering from the alcohol were just so close and he couldn’t help himself but say, “Your eyes are so pretty.”

Kelly just smiled up at him and chuckled, “Thanks. But I think you had enough.”

“Probably,” Matt continued smiling down at Kelly. 

“You want some fresh air?” Kelly asked.

“Can’t hurt.” But when Kelly got up, it was only to wobble as well. 

“Oh, yeah, I shouldn’t drink anymore either.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

And they staggered outside into the alley, both holding onto each other on the way just to lean against the brick building and breathing in the brisk air. It seemed as if Matt’s head was finally starting to become clearer again. 

“What a day,” Matt mumbled, his eyes closed. 

“What a day indeed,” Kelly returned, then turned Matt’s head slowly and kissed him.

For a moment, Matt froze but before Kelly could pull back, Matt fused their mouths more closely together and let his mouth tease open Kelly’s lips so their tongues could meet in a filthy slide. 

Kelly moved so he was crowding Matt against the brick wall, surrounding him and angling his head slightly so they fit together even better, running his hand along Matt’s neck, while their tongues tangled in wet, sloppy movements. 

Matt wasn’t really thinking, which was why when he raised his hands to grip Kelly’s hair to pull him closer, the pain in his hand pulled him out of the moment and he broke the kiss. 

“Ah fuck,” and he cradled his hand, closing his eyes in pain. 

“Fuck, Matt, I’m sorry.”

“Nah, don’t worry, I just forgot about my hand.”

Kelly looked at him weirdly, then just smirked and pulled Matt back towards the bar, “We should probably go back inside, who knows what other bad ideas we might get up to out here.”

Matt smiled but got the message that they shouldn’t continue with what they’d just been doing. Not as if he had initiated this. But he had to admit it hadn’t been bad. At all. 

Matt pulled himself out of the memory, as he was parking in front of his mom’s prison. He leaned his head back onto the head rest, closed his eyes and sighed.

**Author's Note:**

> My first entry into the Sevasey/Caseride fandom. Let's up that fic number on AO3, they deserve so much more love :)


End file.
